{"id":178986,"date":"2025-07-03T19:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/178986\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T19:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:31:10","slug":"lions-97-million-starter-labeled-most-overpaid-player-at-position-in-nfl-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/178986\/","title":{"rendered":"LIons $97 million starter labeled most overpaid player at position in NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Lions rewarded defensive tackle Alim McNeill with a massive four-year, $97 million extension<\/a> in the middle of the 2024 season, and one NFL analyst believes the contract was a massive overpay by the Lions.<\/p>\n

Bleacher Report’s\u00a0Gary Davenport<\/a> dubbed McNeill, who is the fifth-highest-paid defensive tackle in football, the most overpaid player at his position.<\/p>\n

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“McNeill is a quality run defender who flashes occasionally as a pass-rusher. But he’s never had more than five sacks in a season and has just 11.5 for his career. Players making upward of $25 million a season are expected to be game-wreckers. And just when he was showing some potential to be one, he tore up his knee,” Davenport wrote.<\/p>\n

McNeill tore his ACL<\/a> after Detroit’s Week 15 loss to the Buffalo Bills in 2024 and isn’t expected to return until October or November of this year.<\/a> So, the timing of the extension was unfortunate for the Lions, as the starting defensive tackle likely won’t see the field for the first handful of games in 2025.<\/p>\n

Though McNeill doesn’t post prolific sack numbers, his impact on the field is undeniable. When healthy, the 25-year-old is a stout run defender who dominates in the middle of the Lions’ defensive line and helps free up his teammates for easy sack opportunities.<\/p>\n

Despite not posting many sacks, McNeill still provides adequate pass-rushing production on the interior, tallying more than 40 quarterback pressures in each of the last two seasons.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Obviously, McNeill will have to do more in the future to justify his $97 million contract, but the NC State product has gotten better every year he’s been in the league and should be a crucial long-term piece on Detroit’s defense.<\/p>\n

MORE:Lions and Dan Skipper defend Detroit after WNBA star’s negative comment about city<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions rewarded defensive tackle Alim McNeill with a massive four-year, $97 million extension in the middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2071],"tags":[1518,53,6278,2793,146,113,2506,7,12963,147,6,4378],"class_list":{"0":"post-178986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-alim-mcneill","9":"tag-buffalo-bills","10":"tag-dan-skipper","11":"tag-defensive-tackle","12":"tag-detroit","13":"tag-detroit-lions","14":"tag-detroitlions","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-gary-davenport","17":"tag-lions","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-the-lions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114790969458419960","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}